TalkTalk Restores Service After Customers Suffer Landline Woes

Steve McCaskill is editor of TechWeekEurope and ChannelBiz. He joined
as a reporter in 2011 and covers all areas of IT, with a particular interest in telecommunications, mobile and networking, along with sports technology.

TalkTalk customers lose dial tones and can’t make calls following major system upgrade

TalkTalk says it has now fixed technical issues that prevented some customers from making or receiving phone calls.

Users flocked to social media to say they could hear no dial tone on their landline and the operator confirmed there was an issue earlier this morning. The company told TechWeekEurope that normal service was restored at 2pm today.

“During a major system upgrade we experienced an issue that may have impacted some of our customers dial tones and ability to make or receive calls from their landlines,” TalkTalk said to customers. “We’re pleased to say this is now resolved and customers should be able to make and receive calls as normal.”

TalkTalk landline

“We apologise for any inconvenience caused while we restored normal service.”

Despite the problem now being rectified, the incident is unlikely to have improved TalkTalk’s reputation following a catastrophic cyber-attack in October.

The scale of the assault was less than originally feared, but 1.2 million email addresses, names and phone numbers were stolen, as were 21,000 account numbers and sort codes and 28,000 partial card details. However, TalkTalk is adamant that the data stolen is not sufficient for the attackers to steal money.

Still, at least it’s not just TalkTalk having problems this week. EE and O2 customers were among those unable to make calls to landline numbers, with one operator suggesting it was BT’s network was to blame. However TechWeekEurope understands no fault that could have caused the problems was found.

Talk talk service has NOT been restored to my house. Phone and broadband have been off for more than 24 hours. I can’t “chat” to them as no agents available and I am not going to phone them on my mobile as yesterday I was on hold for 45 minutes without getting anyone to talk to. I live in a small town East of Warrington in Chedhire. I was due to be connected to fibre yesterday – instead I have no connections at all except through my mobile 4g signal, luckily not with Talk Talk.